Parking meters can be used as a revenue stream as well as for the management and flow of vehicles and traffic in a municipality. However, in order to increase that revenue stream, the parking meters must be managed efficiently. Various parking meters have been developed for improving the efficiencies of parking meters. This has resulted in parking meters storing information relating to the operation of the parking meter, such as fees collected, errors, coin jams, etc. This parking meter information is then collected and analyzed to improve the revenue stream. This may include adding additional parking meters to high use areas, increase the cost of parking in high use areas, etc.
Parking meters may be classified broadly as multi-space parking meters, or single space parking meters. Multi-space parking meters are larger units in which a parking ticket can be purchased and then must be displayed on the vehicle, or the user may enter a parking space number corresponding to a parking spot for which parking is being purchased and pays for their parking. Multi-space meters are typically used to provide parking metering to a group of parking spaces, a portion of or all of a street block, or to a portion of or all of a parking lot. The multi-space units are generally large in size and typically are powered either by a connection to the power grid, or by a battery in combination with a solar panel. This allows the multi-space meters to power peripheral devices, such as cellular radios for communicating parking meter information to a monitoring location.
In single space parking meters, which are a common aspect of the fixed infrastructure in many cities and municipalities, the parking meters may not normally have radios, but they do capture and generate quantities of data which would be beneficial for managers attempting to manage the parking meters or increase the revenue stream generated from the parking meters. Unfortunately, capturing this data from the street is manually labor intensive. To do so a data collector such as a collections officer is typically given a hand-held device such as a portable data terminal (PDT) and sent out to each parking meter which is probed in turn and the data is captured. Each parking meter may take between 10 seconds and 30 seconds to complete the data capture cycle. The probing is typically carried out either via infrared communication between the parking meter and the hand-held device at an approximate distance of 6 inches, or via a physical blade probe that is inserted into the coin slot of the parking meter. Once the parking meter information is downloaded onto the hand-held device, it is returned from the field, and the parking meter data is uploaded to a computer system and the manager can then view and report on the parking meter data. It may be necessary to repeat this data collection cycle each week or so in order for the parking meter system to be effectively managed. Some managers may have the parking meter data collected concurrent with the physical coin collection; however, this can make the coin collections much more time consuming and tedious for the collections officer. In some instances, the collections officer collecting the coins and the data concurrently will either forget to collect the data, or forget to collect the coins. Where a collections officer is sent to collect the parking meter data separately from a collections officer collecting the coins, the collected information may not be as useful. From an auditing/reconciliation standpoint the data is not as useful, as it is more difficult to analyze or reconcile the collected parking meter data in relation to the coins collected when the data and coins are not collected coincidently.
Some single space parking meters may wirelessly communicate parking meter information to a monitoring location using cellular radios. A drawback of using cellular radios in a single space parking meter is the power consumption. Available power in a single space parking meter is considerably less than in a larger multi-space parking meter, which may be connected to the power grid. Also, data communications over a cellular network can become expensive where there are large numbers of parking meters involved, as each parking meter will need a cellular radio and a corresponding account activated under a telecommunication services provider. Also, most commercial data plans are scaled up in price relative to the amount of data that is transmitted and can become expensive when relatively large amounts of data are to be communicated. Additionally, the minimum data plans offered by telecommunication service providers may be excessive relative to the data transmission requirements for some sites.
Other single space parking meters communicate parking meter information wirelessly to a proximal wireless fixed access point, such as a wireless router, located up to several hundred feet away, or one or two city street blocks away. These single space parking meters may use various communication technologies. In addition to cellular radio technology there are also a variety of alternative, low power, low cost wireless radio frequency (RF) based technologies that can be deployed and used in the parking meter and remote access point equipment that can achieve the required transmission distances. Unlike the cellular radios, many of these wireless RF technologies, such as Wi-Fi (802.11), Zigbee radios that adhere to IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standards, as well as many other proprietary license free radio systems, do not require individual radio registration and licensing nor require payment of “airtime” fees. The wireless fixed access point communicates wirelessly with the single space parking meters, and may communicate with a monitoring location and/or the Internet either via cellular radio/modem, or via hard wire connection such as a cable modem. However, some wireless communications, or line of sight technologies, between the single space parking meters and the fixed access point may suffer from less than ideal reliability or power consumption, especially when transmitting over longer distances such as those required for communicating with a fixed access point, as obstacles such as large vehicles and surrounding infrastructure may sometimes block or impede communications paths.
There is therefore a need for an improved data collection system for electronic parking meters, which addresses or mitigates one or more of the defects described above.